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It's gotta pay the troll toll

APPLE HAS BEEN ORDERED to pay the troll toll after losing its appeal in a years-long patent dispute with renowned patent troll VirnetX.

As Reuters reports, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday denied Apple's efforts to overturn a 2016 verdict that saw the firm slapped with a $302.4m fine for infringing VirnetX's patents for secure communications in its VPN-on-Demand technology and FaceTime and iMessage services. The ruling comes despite VirnetX's patent claims being ruled invalid by an administrative court.

What's more, the fine has since risen to $440m due to interest, enhanced damages and unspecified "other costs", Reuters reports.

Apple said in a statement that it was disappointed in the ruling and planned to appeal... again.

This isn't the first time that VirnetX, a company that has no meaningful source of income outside of patent litigation, has defeated Apple in court.

Back in 2012, the company was awarded $368.2m in damages but that ruling was partially overturned by the US Court of Appeal owing to discrepancies in how the jury was instructed to calculate damages.

Apple isn't the only company that the patent troll has taken aim at, either. Microsoft agreed to pay $200m to VirnetX in 2010 to obtain a licence for two patents covering communicating over the internet.

VirnetX then accused Microsoft in 2013 of infringing its patents in its Skype service, which saw Redmond later agree to pay Microsoft has agreed to pay $23m to the patent troll to settle the dispute. µ